HEAVEN

I suppose hundreds of volumes and thousands of pages have been devoted to this topic.

I earnestly hope to arrive at that nebulous, but worthy destination one day.

And yet when it comes down to it, I think not a one of us would raise their hand and volunteer for immediate passage.

We are all too familiar with this earth, with this life, with the vocation of breathing in and out and simply remaining alive.

Still, we are assured that none of us can stay here, (though I think sometimes anyone who is prone to admit it has convinced him or herself that he or she might mysteriously be the first exception to the rule).

Heaven

I can honestly and earnestly say I hope to go there one day. No, as fine a word as “hope” is, it is the wrong word. For hope only takes us part way to our prize.

I plan to go there. For a plan is required and a plan it will take. And oddly enough, it never was my plan, at all.

No, as fine a plan as it is, (and one I might gladly take credit for) I cannot. Someone bigger and better, and more discerning than I first thought of it.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

Heaven

I hope, no, I expect to go there one day. And I think I have long since ceased to gaze into a sunrise, or even the mid-day sun. For that all too familiar star which once lit my youthful ambitions, and oft blessed my adult motivations now casts its inviting warm, and sultry glow upon the earth before me, and twilight shadows grace the ground upon which I stand.

For that which we are used to calling “real” and “tangible” and “visible” is quickly passing away, and that which we once considered “ethereal” and “intangible” and “invisible” is quickly assuming essence.

Thank God Who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God that this is not all there is. Thank God that He has not left us comfortless. Thank God that He has both a plan and a place for us. Thank God that when the deepening rays of earth’s last sunset resist the inevitable night, we have a home.

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal home in heaven, not built by human hands.”

by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "Wednesday Night Teachings," Vol. 5. Copyright pending

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